User talk:Connel MacKenzie/archive-2006-07

If you are here at the top of the page, you are lost. Go here instead.

Thank's for your Welcome

Thank's for your Welcome ! I'm sysop on french wiktionnary with the pseudo Grondin. --Bertrand GRONDIN 06:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Re: New Transwiki methods

I've responded to your inquiry about the new Special:Import method at my Wikipedia talk page. Thanks. TheProject 00:01, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Given that you've copied over the transwiki candidates and that Special:Log/import serves as a log for this, would it be appropriate for me to begin deleting (or propose deletion of) articles in Wikipedia sent to Wiktionary? Are these articles going to be treated as regular transwikis now? TheProject 02:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes. But I think I need better instructions on what I'm supposed to do on the Wikipedia side, after zapping them over. I don't think I'll always have you to clean up after me on the Wikipedia side.  :-) At least, not in a synchronized manner, anyhow. --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The most important thing you need to do on the Wikipedia side is to log the transwiki at w:Wikipedia:Transwiki log, so that Wikipedia at least knows it was sent out and may possibly require deletion. Unfortunately, we don't have an automatic export log like the shiny new import log here.

If you're familiar with Wikipedia's inclusion policy (which I imagine you are), you can tag articles with {{prod}}, list it on AfD if appropriate, or simply tag with {{db-transwiki}} if it has already been through AfD and the outcome was to transwiki. Either way, if it shows up on Wikipedia's transwiki log, it'll get processed, even if there are a shortage of users monitoring that log.

So now that importing things makes transwikiing so much easier, is there some way I can help here, or have I been rendered redundant? :-) TheProject 03:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

:-) Well, rendered redundant in a good way! Thanks for the tips...WT:TW, w:WP:TL and {{db-transwiki}}. Got it.

I suppose the best way you could help now, would be to learn the Wiktionary styles of formatting entries, vis. WT:ELE and start attacking Special:Randompage/Transwiki!

Vild and I will probably need occasional talk page reminders, whenever the Wikipedia side starts backing up. And perhaps even whomever is signed up to do it on WT:DW.

By the way, no, I'm less and less familiar with the Wikipedia policies and procedures, day by day. I never spent much time there, as I found Wiktionary quite early on. I've made an effort to try to bridge things "over the wall" whenver the opportunity presents itself, but that isn't often enough for me to really understand all the ins and outs there. Last time I checked, the Wikipedia deletion policy centered around a completely arbitrary notion of "not notable" with no attempt to define notability anywhere. I kindof gave up all hope for Wikipedia, when w:Fuzzy wuzzy bunnies was RfD'ed. (Don't look! Quick - do you know what that means? OK, now go look.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:37, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Great. Please keep an eye on w:Category:Move to Wiktionary regularly -- I'd be very much obliged. The other thing you might want to do is check if Wiktionary has an entry on whatever it is that you're transwikiing before you do the import. If the Wikipedia article would add nothing to the Wiktionary entry, it's probably better just to prod it at Wikipedia and not bother with the transwikiing and logging.

By the way, I'm not sure if WT:TW is actually needed anymore, if imports are already logged automatically at Wiktionary at Special:Log/import. They will, however, definitely need to be logged on Wikipedia's transwiki log. As long as it shows up there, someone there'll know what to do with it. :-) TheProject 03:56, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Check out the edit history for Transwiki:Makulit. Seems that if you import it more than once, it copies over duplicates. Not sure if this is a big problem, but you might want to know that. TheProject 04:12, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

By the way, yes, I will start bugging you if it backs up on Wikipedia, although do you think you could let me know who the contacts are for importing? Is it just you and Vild for now? TheProject 05:27, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, cleared up the mess with Transwiki:Makulit. Today, yes, it is just me and Vild. I am hopeful that will change, as the process works itself out, as we both tend to have too much on our plates already. Beyond that, an occasional/monthly note in WT:BP saying how many entries are in the category, might help spur some movement. It might also be helpful if you let me know how long those sub-categories have been over there on w:Category:Move to Wiktionary. Are those expected to be shunted over immediately as well? --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:16, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

What do you think about fiddling with the user rights towards Special:Import? As it's possible that this function is going to be used massively, we shouldn't keep it sysops-only. Making it available for everyone doesn't seem good either. So perhaps a separate permission level that could be quickly granted to transwiki volunteers? — Vildricianus 10:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

If we are going to start messing around with that, we should add a "Trusted user" flag that allows rollbacks and page moves, first. Next would be an ORTS user level that allows Amgine (et al) to view deleted entries. Then a Transwiki flag, that allows TheProject to Import:. Is that a bureaucrat function, or a Brion function? If bureaucrat, it may be an uphill battle. If it is a LocalSettings.php, then we should explain pretty damn clearly what we're up to, on WT:BP. Then we'd need request pages for each user level, a la WT:A. (I'm thinking, requirements for TU being about 100 edits. Requirements for TW: being sysop on WP, or otherwise voted for...e.g. the three accounts that have actively done TWs in the past.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 14:00, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Ain't to sure about that... why allowing rollbacks? Everyone can properly revert without that. Page moves is already allowed. Viewing deleted entries goes with restoring them. We don't want anyone but sysops to restore deleted entries. Setting user rights is for bureaucrats, yes. I think we only need additional import abilities for some. Most of these are primarily WP users, which is why they don't need anything else. — Vildricianus 17:10, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The only reason I ever wanted sysop, to begin with, was the rollback button. Javascript sortof fills that gap now, but not very well - significant technical knowledge is required; and helpful newcomers very rarely even know to load Wikipedia "popups" to do it. Plus, the Wikipedia version is buggy here and needs tweaking.

For OTRS, yes, we can give Amgine whatever access must go along with the ability to view deleted entries, with complete trust that he won't restore entries. We probably should just nominate him on WT:A instead though. (Primetime's slander of Amgine's RfA was what set me hot onto Primetime's trail, IIRC...the previous copyvios had all but been rolled back and shrugged off, prior to that.) --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:21, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't even thinking about popups. Users can just do the manual revert, you know? Equally easy. About Amgine, well sure we can nominate him for A. That's way easier than hacking Special:Undelete for a special user level. — Vildricianus 19:28, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I beg to differ. Manual rollbacks are on WT:FAQ because they are quite counter-intuitive. A [rollback] button, on the other hand, is.

Anyway, if we are going to have someone figure out user level stuff, it shouldn't only be for Import:. But that is a good item to push it with, I suppose. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Differ you can, but you surely realize that making the rollback feature easily available and widespread encourages revert wars and such. You surely know which individuals should not have it. Being qualified to have rollback equals being qualified to be a sysop, for me. Special:Import OTOH is harmless, almost harmless enough to leave it to autoconfirmed users. — Vildricianus 19:39, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, I disagree on both points. The rollback button does little to encourage revert-wars, but it does insert the nice comment automatically...and rolls back all contribs by a bad user by default. Special:Import does on the other hand, seem wide open to abuse. --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:58, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Which of both actions gets logged? Rollback or import? There's no way to start dealing out rollback privileges to some but not all that meet a certain criterion. Whilst I understand this is your personal opinion, which I respect, I'm thinking about realizing this stuff. You talk about using Import to push rollback - I'm talking about rollback causing import to fail. Don't link them, at least not now. Let's try solving the transwiki stuff, not the rollback thing. — Vildricianus 20:11, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Hrumph. Well, OK, but I had to get one more indentation in here. --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

That's a damn good reason. — Vildricianus 20:34, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

So what does happen when it runs out of space? Will it become a verticle line one character wide? --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:29, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I've no idea. Perhaps the servers crash and the entire interweb dies. — Vildricianus 17:43, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, it's been a while since anyone has asked me to "reboot the internet" for them... --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I strongly advise you warn Brion first. — Vildricianus 18:06, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, why? It's only HTML that breaks. And actually, the limit(s) will be browser specific, won't they? --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:08, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps. But on my browser and screen, it was I who first went off-screen. — Vildricianus 18:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

My browsers are not showing any comments completely off-screen yet. Perhaps I should check my screen width. I suppose I could try it at 640x480. I wonder if I can find a video card that does 320x240. Probably not, these days.

Oh, did you mean that I should advise Brion before rebooting the internet? Or before indenting more? --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

I suppose the only thing remaining to say about this is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. --Connel MacKenzie T C 18:37, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

What we can do now is follow Columbus's reasoning and believe we will end up in the navigation bar sooner or later. Even though we may encounter something completely different, we will still call it "sidebar". — Vildricianus 18:39, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh well. Move to BJAODN? --Connel MacKenzie T C 19:12, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Move to Main Page. — Vildricianus 19:24, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Hiding Main Page

Hi there. I saw the effects of your experiment earlier. The version of the file on Wikipedia (where the heading is hidden) seems to be rather different - there isn't a "hideMainPageHeading" function. It is too complicated for me to start thinking about though. SemperBlotto 21:34, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, they had it in-line, not wrapped in a function cleanly. Apparently, there is a reason for that.  :-) I suppose I can try that method, if no one beats me to it. --Connel MacKenzie T C 21:36, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, that was it. Yuck! --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:09, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

rhinoceros

Hi, can you explain to me why you reverted my changes to rhinoceros? Have I done something wrong? My deitalicising of the family name was a pure correction so I will redo that while I wait. - Rwicked 00:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but taxonomic classifications are not English, therefore yes, they should be in italics.

I rolled your change back, as you had taken a specific descriptive definition and changed it to something too generic and not descriptive. The definition you gave conveyed no meaning. On such a dubious change, it would be good to cite a reference (or five.)

The goal here is not to use the most obscure terms to describe things, rather the goal is to describe things in a manner that can be understood. Isn't that what a dictionary is for? --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:52, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The general rule is that names of genera and species are ALWAYS italicised. Family names and above are NEVER italicised so they are not confused with possible genus names. You will find this is standard in scientific usage, and listings here should reflect that. This is apparent as a problem with many of the listings of taxonomic names, and I intend to go around correcting them if I have time.

As for my other edit, the change I made actually conveyed more meaning, because the odd-toed ungulates are a more restrictive group than the polyphyletic pachyderms. Pachyderm as a classification is deprecated because of this polyphyly, so I changed the definition to a more scientifically accurate one. (And surely ungulate is a less obscure term than pachyderm anyway? Pachyderm almost always describes only elephants nowadays.) Nevertheless I will defer if there is some established standard to use the older classifications. - Rwicked 09:20, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well then, I stand corrected and newly informed. IF you wish to add the clarification to the definition, that is different that replacing a definition. I'd think that pachyderm is a more popularly used word than ungulate. When I looked up ungulate here, I was left wondering why you made the change; apparently our definition of ungulate is still inadequate.

Since you actually know what you are doing with the taxonomic classifications, I'll defer to your knowledge on the matter. Beyond just staying out of your way, I wish there were some way I could encourage you to clean up the various taxonomic entries that we have. Each should have an "==Interlingual==" language header. For the required 3rd level part of speech heading, I believe we have been using "===Symbol===" as the taxonomy heading (but that can change, if someone such as yourself insists that it is incorrect.) For multi-word entries (such as genus-species) each headword should be wikified. If you understand the correct Wikispecies links, those would also be appreciated. --Connel MacKenzie T C

Thanks Connel, I will look into those things. - Rwicked 00:15, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Indexes populate category dump headers import

Have you got any idea how to populate the index pages? Most of them are stubs. There could be many possibilities, theoretically, but it's up to you or any other database freaks to say how realistic they are: import from other wiktionaries, from other free online sources, harvesting from or own not-very-big language categories, or, naturally, from the XML dumps, either via level 2 headers or from the translations section. Any thoughts or ideas? This should be automatable I guess. For English we could try to re-format Brian098's hotlist, the dictlist etc. — Vildricianus 17:20, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the English index in quite some time. We do have another XML dump imminent, so ask me again next week or something. I'm not convinced about the legality of Brion098's hotlist, so I'd rather not touch it. If Andrew or BDA can give me some assurance that it is clean (as a composite list, not being subject to any copyright traps) then I'll be even happier if it can be integrated into the index (perhaps with English Requested entries, as well) and delete the questionable lot.

Additionally, I could integrate the Project Gutenberg words (with over 100 hits?) into that same list. I think the resulting list might be rather huge (by our standards.) Two-letter subpages might not be granular enough...e.g. "Index:English/st" might have to be seven pages (vowels + other.)

Remind me to give this more thought in August. I think it is too big for me to attack next week. --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll ask BD. Must be possible I guess, certainly if we further mix things up. PG... careful. Some things with many hits aren't any words, at least not last time I checked. The main thing is the non-English languages, though; English will get sorted out pretty easily I guess. — Vildricianus 17:49, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I filtered out non-English texts, for about the last 8 or 9 runs. Many of the older texts didn't have a standard heading that identified the text language, so I had to check a lot by hand. And the boilerplate text changed at least a half dozen times, over the years, so it was a pain. But I seem to have gotten those kinks worked out already. The only remaining junk is the various XML tags that slipped through the cracks (especially from the dictionary and encyclopedia texts.) But yes, a good warning nevertheless. I should review (and expand) the list of blacklisted terms again, regardless. --Connel MacKenzie T C 17:57, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking at that hotlist, I see that many terms would possibly fail our CFI. Should we derive the English index only from existing entries? Might be an interesting point. They should then be updated upon each XML dump. Gives us the opportunity to do the index business properly, leaving as little room for unattested stuff as we do for normal entries. — Vildricianus 12:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

PS: And of course, for other languages as well then. Defeats the idea of having the indexes full of red links, using them as starting points for new entries, but then, separate lists could be made for that purpose. — Vildricianus 12:41, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Indo-Iranian Swadesh list

Hi Connel! I noticed that the list contains Romanized text for Persian, Hindi/Urdu, and Sanskrit. They're all wikified. Can I de-link them? I see no purpose of having links to hundreds of pages in Romanized Persian or Hindi/Urdu (since neither uses Roman script). Sanskrit, I'm unsure (we have tons of Sanskrit in Roman script). I'm for moving all Romanized Sanskrit to Devanagari. --Dijan 18:13, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I have no idea. Let's ask Stephen...or the Beer parlour. Was anyone thinking of allowing Romanizations? Would it make sense to enter them as redirects, or 'bot enter them? --Connel MacKenzie T C 20:29, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Romanizations/transliterations/whatever make little sense. That's my two cents here. They may be given in translation tables or at the entries, but they shouldn't be the entries themselves. Impossible to do that the NPOV way. — Vildricianus 22:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

So don't leave them wikified, and don't enter them as redirects to the entry in the proper script? Um, OK. Whatever. --Connel MacKenzie T C 22:30, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think they should be redirects. Many of the transliterations (Romanizations or whatever) of Persian are spelled that way in Kurdish (and some of them are entered). I think they should just be included on the page where native script is used, and only to aid as a transliteration and/or pronunciation. I also hate the idea of having transliterations as main entries. --Dijan 03:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Didn't someone have a page of which languages are transliterated, and which ones are not, for Wiktionary? That is, a page that said which languages we do want the Romanizations for (e.g. Japanese) and which ones we don't? I think these should be spelled out there...perhaps even with the rationale for or against entering them for a given language. --Connel MacKenzie T C 03:25, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... All I've found is that our transliteration policy (draft proposal) says this: "a transliteration should be provided in the body of the article...common transliterations should be given redirects to the non-transliterated form. As for whether to create transliteration articles (redirecting or pointing to the non-transliterated form) for the benefit of beginner students, the decision should be made individually for each language, on a language considerations page."

I don't know. I agree with the first part. I don't know what exactly should one consider a "common transliteration". And as for the last part, the only language consideration policies on romanization and transliteration that we have, I believe, are for Japanese romaji and possibly Greek(?). Also, the transliteration policy (draft proposal) states this: "Anyone seeking to use the Wiktionary to look up a term by its romanization should be able to know, based on the Wiki-romanization standard, how the article will be spelled. In most, or all cases, the romanization standard should contain no accents or diacritical marks." Ummm...I'm not really sure what this is about. Are we to allow romanized forms so that they can be searchable? And...I think it's going to be quite hard to take away diacritical marks off of some languages' romanizations (namely Hindi with about 5 variants of letter "d" and 5 variants of letter "t"...without diacritical marks, how do we distinguish them?). I think that romanizations should be confined to the body of an entry with the title in native script. What do you suggest we do? --Dijan 05:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

red wikilinks?

If you remove any more wikilinks simply because they are red, you may be blocked. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:22, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Why do you defend red wikilinks so passionately? Please direct me to a wiktionary policy that states specifically that an account can be blocked for removal of red wikilinks? Anyway, surely the conspiracy theory article is better off without an annoying and completely unnecessary red wikilink for the plural version conspiracy theories? Perhaps the other editor who added that should have created conspiracy theories as a redirect to avoid this issue? Hollow are the Ori 04:28, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

It is Wiktionary policy to trust the few sysops we have to act responsibly. Removal of those wikilinks seems very much like vandalism, to me. For every entry that Wiktionary should (and eventually, will) have, the links need to remain red. Very few Wikimedia projects have policies against red wikilinks. Red links are very important for garnering well-meaning newcomers. Red links are very important for assigning priority via Special:Wantedpages.

Please do remember, that the various red-link policies and practices are not mine. Although I occasionally argue against some of them, they remain the Wiktionary community's best approach.

DO NOT enter redirects for English language entries, where stub entries belong.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 04:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I created a stub for conspiracy theories to hopefully resolve this issue. In my interpretation your passion in defense of red wikilinks seems vastly disproportional to the "situation" but perhaps I am not as aware of historical wiktionary policies and practices. Red wikilinks are worse than a missing stub and/or a missing plural version in my interpretation. Other dictionary websites include plural and other versions within the same page, what is the rationale for wiktionary handling them differently? Hollow are the Ori 04:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Other on-line dictionaries are attempting to describe only one language at a time, not all words in all languages. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikilinks inside definitions

How should I go about trying to convince you that wikilinks generally don't belong inside of a definition? Though in my interpretation it's ok if the links are included inside a (see also: X) type caveat. Wikilinks excessively visually emphasize some words but not others which is a POV decision and corrupts abstract comprehension. Definitions should stand on their own, if someone doesn't know a word or concept inside a definition they should look that up separately, comprehension is multi-step process not a clicking contest. Everything important you want to wikilink can be done so inside of a "Usage note" or "word history" section or within the wikipedia article on that subject? Hollow are the Ori 04:43, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

First of all, it is not me that you need to convince to such a systemic change, but the entire Wiktionary community. Such a fundamental change would take probably over a month of discussion on the Beer parlour.

The spelling/symantic differences are precisely why all headwords (for multi-word terms) and inflected forms (such as plurals) are always wikified.

Key terms of a definition are wikified. Terms within example sentences are never wikified, but the headword is bolded. Most of the terms in the Etymology sections are wikified. All synonyms, antonyms, alternate spellings, related terms and see alsos are wikified (unless a newbie entered them incorrectly.) All translations are wikified, and uncommon languages are also wikified.

Connel, this is a really useful explanation of where we wikify, which I have not seen elsewhere. Unless I have missed it somewhere, may I suggest adding it to Help:How_to_edit_a_page#Links --Enginear 01:00, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, it used to be in WT:ELE before one of the great purges. Some of it was also mentioned in WT:CFI, oddly. The rest is (as I said to HATO,) not my ideas of what is right or wrong...probably found somewhere in the Beer parlour archives. But you are right, some explanation of it all belongs somewhere.  :-) Somewhere out there is the warning not to wikify every term in a sentence, but I forget where that prose got to. I'll add this now...please be bold and clean it up to your own satisfaction. --Connel MacKenzie T C 01:38, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

That prose is at WT:FAQ#Wikfying :-). — Vildricianus 09:49, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

So it is. Thanks. I've just updated it as well. Both of you, please review it to make needed corrections. It was a little outdated. --Connel MacKenzie T C 04:17, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I changed the "other guidelines" sentence, since I didn't fully understand the original. Please check my interpretation is correct. --Enginear 02:54, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Much better. Thanks! --Connel MacKenzie T C 02:58, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

I do see numerous benefits to wikifying key terms in definitions. I do see the disadvantage that you indicate, but it seems tremendously outweighed by the benefits. I think if you were to make that case in the beer parlour, it would be a very difficult uphill battle all the way. One of the greatest strengths of Wiktionary is that key words are wikified (because it is so easy to do so.)

This dictionary serves many different levels of users. Professional linguists may balk at key terms in definitions being wikified, but the majority of readers love them.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 04:58, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Whether, as you claim, readers or others "love" wikilinking is a secondary consideration to whether the links create or perpetuate confusion, which is something a dictionary should be trying infinitely hard to avoid in my interpretation, especially when it comes to abstract conceptualization. Hollow are the Ori 05:05, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, again, it is not me that you need to convince, but instead the entire Wiktionary community. We've attracted dozens of people now, who are interested in creating a virgin-pure copyright-free dictionary for the world to be able to use. The fact that is is more usable by being less-than-perfect from a linguistic's viewpoint seems to be a secondary consideration.

As far as helping convey meaning of abstract concepts, wikilinks help readers to understand the material presented, while also helping contributors actually check for inconsistencies. To assert that the removal of a useful feature is beneficial, seems quite incorrect to me.

--Connel MacKenzie T C 05:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

So you are just mindlessly yet passionately enforcing wiktionary policy or practice with no concern for validity? Your analysis of my case against wikilinking seems to have overlooked the issue of visual emphasis and impact the linked words and phrases have upon a reader. Visually emphasized words seem to encourage a mindless and errantly literal comprehension. For example, definitions for the phrase enemy combatant historically excessively wikilinked the word enemy which I interpret to have the effect upon the reader of encouraging mindless hatred of anyone labeled with "enemy combatant" regardless of the details of each case. In my interpretation that emphasis was included within wiktionary for the purpose of propaganda (which would violate NPOV to say the least). Separate question, is there an article here or on wikipedia on the historical and/or current corruption/fudging of definitions for the purpose of propaganda? I suspect there are actually more than a few sources available to make an article on that. Hollow are the Ori 05:32, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Neither mindlessly, nor passionately. Your personal attacks are quite tiresome. As I said earlier, yes I see your point. But I forgot to add earlier; I suggest you wear a hat. --Connel MacKenzie T C 06:50, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how it's possible to both see my point and deny its implications, please explain. Also explain the hat business. Hollow are the Ori 06:53, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Hindi/Urdu

> Hi, could you please comment on my talk page? I have no idea what our policy is for these languages (nor do I know if it makes sense.

I’m not sure what you mean. In general, I don’t think we should allow Hindi/Urdu entries in the Roman alphabet. I can accept romanized entries for dead languages such as Sanskrit, Egyptian and Pali, because scholars regularly work with them that way. But Persian and Urdu should be written in Arabic script, and Hindi in Devanagari. The only Hindi or Urdu words that I think are properly written in Roman letters are words that have been borrowed into English, and then, of course, they should be marked as English. On the other hand, translations from English to Urdu tend to retain a very large percentage of the original English words (on the order of 80%), but then they write them in the Arabic script. —Stephen 08:59, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry. I was talking about the #Indo-Iranian Swadesh list section above. But you seem to have answered my question adequately anyhow. Now if only I could find the page that lists which languages get which treatment... --Connel MacKenzie T C 14:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Restoring

What's the restoring all about? — Vildricianus 10:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Those ten pages (all the restoring) is for the Special:Brokenpages links, that need to be remain corrected until the next DblRedirBot run. It ran today, so it will be a couple days. --Connel MacKenzie T C 10:30, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Mm. Why not simply deleting these obsolete main namespace redirects? — Vildricianus 10:32, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Because they are still linked externally. STILL. That's why you're leaving all readirects for months, after the namespacing, remember? --Connel MacKenzie T C 10:34, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Who the heck would link to those pages? :-) Must be pretty desperate folks. (I'm talking about the all-caps Interlingua pages only, not the indexes in general). — Vildricianus 10:57, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Descendants

Hiya Connel. I see you've been changing some of my =Descendants= headings into =Derived terms=. But, I thought Derived Terms was used for words in the same language. Either way, we should probably distinguish between the two concepts in some way. See eg heah, which has derived terms in OE, but also an English descendant (high). It makes sense for these to be in separate sections, no? Widsith 07:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm. I see what you mean. Was there a discussion about this somewhere that I've forgotten? Honestly, when I saw =Descendants=, I thought it was a basic error. I'll turn that check off in my Javascript right away, but adding extra heading types should probably be discussed somewhere. --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:54, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Assistance

yes me knew her. can du asisit me learn? 216.164.203.90 04:20, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

FYI, Connel, I know you thought you were reverting vandalism in this rollback, but the anon appears to have been legitimately trying to request for an admin to stop actual vandalism ([1], [2], [3], [4]). Rod (A. Smith) 02:39, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It seems you are correct. I have lifted that invalid block. The edit I saw was to DAVilla's account, marking it as the imposter and not DavlIa. As I said in the block log, I meant to verify it later, but forgot entirely. Thank you for clearing this up. --Connel MacKenzie 02:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

My block on IP adress

Oddly enougt that you:

1. Blocked me on IP adress because I wasn't today on IRC very offend WiktZ
2. I have changeable IP
3. This isn't WiktZ
4. I'm not troll on local wiktionaries but only on commons and local wikis

If you want blocking me here, you are been big problems. Template:Pietras1988 10:37, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

custom cookies

I assume (perhaps incorrectly) that you saw the "cookies" stuff in MediaWiki:Monobook.js. Are you using them for the extended Wiktionary:Preferences page? You are just thinking about having a whole bunch of toggles for these things, right? How is your progress on this going, anyhow? Any news? --Connel MacKenzie T C 07:24, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Nope, no progress; dropped that little project for now in favor of some others. (I've been alarmingly flighty on side projects lately.) I'll likely get back to it eventually... —scs 16:49, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

No worries then. I'm using the technique you demonstrated to do it. Connel MacKenzie/Preferences, User:Connel MacKenzie/setpreferences.js. --Connel MacKenzie 16:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

See WT:GP#Wiktionary User Preferences redux. --Connel MacKenzie 16:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

vandalism question / impersonator? misunderstanding?

Dear Connel MacKenzie- I don't want to make things worse, so I hope no one will take this the wrong way - but if you would - just briefly - see whether or not http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/User:DAVilIa he is an impersonator or vandal. At first he seemed like an admin, but now I'm not sure because it seems (but I could be wrong) that some of his edits include blatant blanking and excessive profanity in the edit summaries. He has threatened to block me, which I sincerely hope y'all won't do, as I do consider most of my submissions here ot be constructive (and all the rest are messy ones to my own user pages, lol). Anyways, thanks if you help out. Beobach972 02:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It was the same pattern that we've been seeing for the last couple days; an admin username is impersonated by using an upper case "i" instead of a lower case "L". My .CSS shows the impersonation very plainly, but not everyone is using COURIER font for user information, just yet. Sorry I wasn't around when it happened. --Connel MacKenzie 03:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thanks for letting me know. I say, I noticed the l-I thing about the same time I noticed him adding profanity to your page, and well - figured out he was a fake at that point. Oddly enough I think that anon was a vandal too -- or some anon was, someone did blank the real Davilla's page in the process of all that. Anyway, as I told Andrew massyn, thank you for stopping his rampage.
You've probably thought of both of these suggestions already, but -could we either a) change the font used to display usernames, or b) set up some automated process that would automatically check new users against a list of existing ones, and if the difference in usernames was only one character (particularly l > I), alert an administrator? Beobach972 04:55, 9 July 2006 (UTC).
PS: reading your response above, I'll emend that : could we "force"-display a readable font for usernames? PPS: noticing I have messages, and reading them - yep, the anon was a vandal too. Thanks for reverting his mess.

Several methods exist (but aren't very popular with most sysops here) so it takes some time (i.e. if I'm eating dinner or playing a concert or something) to even notice that something is going on. Fortunately, the recent spate of nonsense is causing enough waves that those two suggestions (plus three others - hush, hush) are being given more attention. With a little bit more, they may become part of MediaWiki 1.7 or 1.8 too. --Connel MacKenzie 05:13, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

rfvfailed

Aren't the discussions supposed to go under WT:RFVA? Orphan talk pages are routinely deleted. --Connel MacKenzie 05:17, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Vlid suggested earlier to put them to Catagory RFVresult via Template frvResult, which is what I have been doing. All the orphan pages are at Catag RFVresult and are intact. Regards. Andrew massyn 05:26, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Hrm. That doesn't sound right. I'm not the only one that does deletion sweeps like that, on the Talk: namespace...and I'm not sure I'd remember to check there, even on a good day. --Connel MacKenzie 05:31, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll amend the template to include WT:RFVA. Andrew massyn 05:37, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Three other things:

1. {{rfvResult}} is only for entries where a sense fails, but the entry is kept.
2. Use the "text=" parameter when using that template. (See Talk:easy jetter.)
3. The WT:RFV page does not seem to link that category page, as an archive, anywhere.

--Connel MacKenzie 05:37, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

In that case, there is no template for rfvfailed. Temp|rfvResult seems to work for both sense and the main entry. Is there any point in splitting them? Andrew massyn 05:46, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Serbian entries

Hi Connel. I just wanted to ask you if you could not change the sub-headings Cyrillic spelling and Roman spelling into Alternative spellings in Serbian entries (like you did on секунда). Alternative spelling suggests that the spelling can be used instead of the main entry word. However, if the entry is in Roman script, then apparently Cyrillic alternative cannot be used in a sentence written in Roman script. The two are never mixed together. Cyrillic spelling on a Roman script entry page, only suggests that Serbian is written in both scripts not that they can be used simultaneously. I suggest that we make Cyrillic spelling and Roman spelling into official third (or fourth, depending on length and leveling of entry) sub-heading for Serbian entries. --Dijan 07:20, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, perhaps starting a Serbian section at Wiktionary:Language considerations would be helpful? Most other languages list the Romanizations on the same line, immediately after the POS heading. I don't see the benefit of drifting so far from the norm. --Connel MacKenzie 08:27, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

Roman spelling in Serbian is not romanization. Roman script is official (as is Cyrillic) for writing the Serbian language. It is not a romanization intended for Westerners to learn quickly or so that it can be typed faster (as it is with most languages). I'll see if we can start a Serbian section at Wiktionary:Language considerations. Thanks. --Dijan 08:33, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Dijan that both Cyrillic and Roman are native scripts for Serbian (and Serbocroatian and almost for Belarusian). I agree with Connel that the various ways of spelling a word in Serbian should be treated in exactly the same way as the various ways of spelling words in all other languages. I agree with everybody who things "Alternative spellings" is far from perfect as the name of this heading but so far discussions on improving it have gone nowhere. Currently I support "Spellings". What Dijan says about never mixing Roman and Cyrillic is true. It is just as true for mixing British and American English spellings and Simplified and Traditional Chinese. I am for unification in Wiktionary and against having different article formats for each language. If necessary please take this discussion to the Beer parlour. — Hippietrail 22:48, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

It's becoming harder and harder to get anyone to respond to anything, on the Beer parlour. The change of all "=Alternative spellings=" to "=Spellings=" seems very reasonable, but got no response at all when last discussed. I'm not sure it that would satisfy User:Dijan or not, but certainly is something that should be revived in the Beer parlour, or elsewhere. --Connel MacKenzie 05:15, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry Connel. I didn't mean to be a pain in the ass. My point is just that I don't think that another script should be listed under "Alternative spellings" or even "Spellings" because that might cause a bit of confusion whether those can be used interchangeably or not. Serbian dictionaries (usually printed in Cyrillic) never mention Roman script (not even next to the words, nor as "spellings"). Dictionaries printed in Roman script do the same thing. It's almost like it's forbidden to write in both scripts at the same time. Here on Wiktionary, as you've noticed, I have been including Serbian words written in Roman script as separate entries from Cyrillic and Cyrillic entries as separate entries from Roman script (this is because both are official and both should be stated rather than creating two different dictionaries just for Serbian). So far, I think mentioning "Roman spelling" or "Cyrillic spelling" seems to work fine. I've also used "See also" in the past, but that space seems to be reserved for other related words, not the same word in different script.

My point about "Spelling" is that how a word is spelled in another script does not necessarily make it into a "spelling variant". I think that "Spelling" heading should be kept for words that can be spelled in different ways (in the same script) and still be considered acceptable. --Dijan 08:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I think I must have said this somewhere before. The all-spellings-in-one-section system sometimes oversimplifies the situation. There are a number of categories spelling differences can be divided into:

1. equally or almost equally valid spellings;
2. regionally variant spellings;
3. (purely) hyphenational differences;
4. obsolete, archaic or rare spellings;
5. variants across scripts;

and probably a number of others as well. Some spelling variants have come nearer to the status of synonym than that of true spelling variant. Now I'm not saying all of these should be treated differently, but not the same either. I feel that an obsolete spelling used in Spencer's and Shakespeare's time should be mentioned in a ===Word history=== section, not in a ===Spellings section===. — Vildricianus 13:41, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

While I agree they should be identified as to what type of =Spellings= listing it is, I don't think separate headings is the correct answer. The same method for subdividing =Translations= seems more appropriate for subdividing =Spellings=. Alternately, italic comments on the same line could explain a spelling type.

I very strongly agree that this is not a Serbian-specific issue. Sorry if I was being an ass in my approach to this delicate subtlety. --Connel MacKenzie 15:21, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

One final comment before someone moves this to WT:BP; we should be able to have some consistency with "easy" languages like Serbian, so when we hit the really esoteric ones we have some basic methods worked out. --Connel MacKenzie 20:18, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

rfv again

Thanks for your comments. I have taken the consensus into account and am deleting at RFV rather than sending them on to RFD. (Saves a hellova lot of time aswell).

I am trying to verify all but the most offensive words, and makng a judgment call on what I see either on Google or on the page itself. I have asked Rod if he can link the rfvfailed template to WT:RFVA automatically, but perhaps if it is done, your suggestion of sub-pages at WTRFVA is still good, because otherwise that page will become humongous. Andrew massyn 17:39, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Re : Red links

Content of the deleted page was : Dis was the City of the Dead in Dante's Inferno. It's gate is guarded by Fallen Angels., marked with db-nonsense by another user. Go ahead and re-create the article if you think it can be written as an encyclopedic format. I've converted the red link at the disamb page in case you prefer to leave it as a one line definition there. - Best regards, Mailer Diablo

MacKenziebot

Perfect idea to have it used at last! Now I can whitelist your bot actions in my CDVF while still keenly watching your normal edits :-D. — Vildricianus 08:50, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

:-) Glad you like the technique. Where's VildBot? --Connel MacKenzie 09:03, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

I've already installed Python, so that's one step in the right direction I guess. — Vildricianus 09:11, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Madness. [5] This is too damn easy. — Vildricianus 09:54, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Ahem. I think I *did* say something to that effect, some time ago.  :-)   --Connel MacKenzie 09:59, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

hanged and hung

Saw your note on "lawbreaking". These two words have a different meaning. SemperBlotto 06:57, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Autoredirects

Did you build in a way to have it switched off in personal JS files? I'd like to have it off for me, without affecting others. — Vildricianus 11:50, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I did not, but that is a very good idea for /Preferences. Even better would be to determine if the user is logged in or not...and only display the 'did-you-mean' if logged in. Or some combination of the two. I'll look at this tonight. --Connel MacKenzie 14:58, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for answering my question about the latest downloads. RJFJR 13:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

User:BigNate37

You were wrong indeed, as you suspected. I've unblocked the username and released the corresponding autoblock - see my Wikipedia talk page. — Vildricianus 16:30, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I replied on his Wikipedia talk page. --Connel MacKenzie 16:49, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

monobook foibles

One of the most aggravating things about adding minor features with Javascript is never knowing at which phase something needs to execute...for me at least.

Anything that looks at document.getElements.... needs to wait for the page load to complete, before starting to execute. So the "onload" action is the way to go.

The normal document.onload is problematic on wiki*s though. Because several separate Javascript files are being executed, some before page load, some after, whichever JS file overrides the "onload" directive last wins.

The work-around, is to attach functions to the document.onload event. MediaWiki:Monobook.js at the very end adds such an event.

The weirdness with the buttons is the result of wikibits.js. It adds the buttons via Javascript (so that users with javascript disabled are not frustrated by inert buttons.) To accomplish it, it must wait for the onload event...or else 'tooly' does not exist. So the later executing Special:Mypage/monobook.js has to be careful not to overwrite the newly created mediaWiki buttons.

My current Monobook.js adds one single "#R" redirect button. The last time I messed around with it, everything stopped working. Recently, sometimes it does not work correctly, either. I'm tempted to use the wikibits.js calls instead, if I have to wrestle with it again.

"Never wrestle with a pig. You'll get dirty, and the pig will just enjoy it." -I have no idea where I got this quote from.

Sorry I don't have anything more helpful, right now. Leave me a link to the bs.wikt: page you were referring to and I'll try to look into it. --Connel MacKenzie 08:01, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

---

Thanks Connel for the info. What I'm trying to do on bs.wiktionary is to place extra buttons into the toolbar, but also to place the "Edittools" special characters right below it (or on the same line) so that it appears above the edit text box and not below it. Right now, someone has been able to do that (I believe the code came from de.wikisource), however there is a problem with that. All the new buttons added to the toolbar function perfectly fine, but the regular toolbar (starting with "Bold" and ending with "Horizontal line") do not function at all. Edittools characters work fine. The code is not actually in Monobook.js, but in Onlyifediting.js. The code (I think) is being called by the Monobook.js to turn on the extra buttons. I don't know what the problem is. If you can, please take a look at the Monobook.js code as well as the Onlyifediting.js code at:

Monobook.js

Onlyifediting.js

Please leave any suggestions you might have on my talk page here. Thank you. --Dijan 19:48, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

1. In that monobook, the line window.onload = function() { exists. This immediately raises a red flag for me. The bs.wikt: also uses wikibits.js (view source) but it seems to be getting pooched by that window.onload. The correct way to do it is with addLoadEvent. No explanation is given as to why they think they need to do it the wrong way.
2. Several other problems exist there. Look at MediaWiki:Monobook.js here. The first line plus the last line does the <PRE> magic trick that makes the whole thing much more readable.
3. There are multiple function addLoadEvent()s defined. (Should have only the first of them.)
4. The last four lines of the bs.wikt: Monobook use "aOnloadFunctions" where they really must instead use "addLoadEvent". E.g. addLoadEvent( Annotations );
5. The (multiple!) sections with // BEGIN Enable multiple onload functions should each be removed.

--Connel MacKenzie 20:13, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much. I'll try to fix those things, although I know nothing about scripts. If you want, I could grant you sysop status on bs.wiktionary for the time being and you can try to fix it (you know more about this stuff than I do). --Dijan 20:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

While that would facilitate testing/debugging, I must insist that any such sysop flag be temporary (48 hours, max.) I can't even pronounce the language name properly, let alone pretend to understand any of it! --Connel MacKenzie 20:32, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Wow, I seem to have done some damage with my recommendations, so far. I had to turn off JavaScript in my browser, just to edit my brand new userpage there. --Connel MacKenzie 20:42, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Hehe. How do I make a user into a "temp." sysop? Use the regular "Make sysop" page? --Dijan 21:09, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yup. And remove the flag on the same page when done. --Connel MacKenzie 21:10, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Erm, no. I think a steward has to be involved, actually. --Connel MacKenzie 21:12, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Yep. I can make you into a sysop (done), but apparently a steward will have to de-sysop you later. --Dijan 21:14, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Your entry

Although not meaning to be rude, I had a fairly good laugh over an old entry of yours: [6]. Really, you managed to combine most parts of speech in that one. Categorizing a noun as an adverb while describing the adjective! :-D — Vildricianus 17:29, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Old Prussian Templates

Oh, thanks for the advice -- if it becomes a problem, I'll try that. I've seen all the fuss over the Swedish/Finnish templates. I think I can get away with this, though, as the only Prusy users on here so far are my brother and I (and EncycloPetey?). I'm probably going to ask EncycloPetey to delete all of the old templates, as they need to be rebuilt totally, including the page names (they need shorter names, like Fi01a). Beobach972 04:51, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I thought the language templates were supposed to have the ISO 639 prefix mixed in there somewhere. Might be a good question to ask on WT:GP, as you might inadvertently encounter some time-saving help. --Connel MacKenzie 05:42, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Regarding w:User:Connel MacKenzie/Primetime and w:Wikipedia/Long term abuse/Primetime

Someone substed your transclusion of w:User:Connel MacKenzie/Primetime into w:Wikipedia/Long term abuse/Primetime a while back, so your edits to w:User:Connel MacKenzie/Primetime no longer show up at w:Wikipedia/Long term abuse/Primetime. I did not do this, though. Since more sockpuppets were discovered and added to the resulting page, it would be impractical for me to undo the substing and retain the changes. Jesse Viviano 03:34, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Yawiktionary

Hi Connel MacKenzie, This is User:Yogiudo, I created the project fork, http://www.yawiktionary.com. I am building more and more to the base of the engine and I hope to launch August 1st, but it looks like it will be delayed.  :-(

Yawiktionary is 100% Java and does not support many of the base wiki features/syntax currently - nor will it ever.

One of the major changes I've incorporated into this new wiki engine is that I have removed the ability to over-wikify. This is a serious problem in the wiki community.

I have added several other features such as a rich client. Anyhow, I did add a term, Yawiktionary and I thought it would be OK.

Additionally, I would like to reference Yet Another Wiktionary under this page, w:Yet Another due to the fact that the page has been deleted.

— This unsigned comment was added by 72.141.37.250 (talk).

Congratulations on your plans to fork. I do wish you the best of luck with it.

Regarding the entry Yawiktionary; we probably will have a fairly long wait, before that term meets our CFI...at least a year, or so. Sorry about that. We don't currently have a page Wiktionary:Mirrors and forks (nor Wiktionary:Mirrors, nor Wiktionary:Forks,) so there really isn't a good place to announce it, other than perhaps our internal announcement board. Perhaps the best place to ask is the Beer Parlour.

About http://www.yawiktionary.com, I notice that you do properly mention "wiktionary.org" at the bottom of the page, however to fully comply with the GFDL, you may wish to deep-link the exact entry's Wiktionary page, itself.

I love Java. It is very nice to see your project up and running.

Regarding your choice of dewikification...hmmm. Words are wikified here, generally, if they should have an entry (eventually.) This encourages newcomers to get involved. It also is very helpful to link "root" forms of a word, rather than an inflected form (where the reader is much more likely to get the information they desire.) Lastly, wikifying idioms is nearly impossible with the technique you seem to be using.

Also of note, there exist plugins for Firefox, and google toolbar for IE, that do the same style lookup (without the verification that the term exists,) for those browsers.

Again, best of luck! --Connel MacKenzie 05:24, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not just me, there is about 4 or 5 of us currently..

Its just a fun project for now.

Oh, for Idioms etc - we're working on an algorythm which will actually do pattern checks for large/multi word phrases before it goes down to the atomic word by word level.

When I meant over wikification, I meant in articles which use too much wiki-formating. Some articles are "wikified" to death, because they are not really portable anymore.. I guess thats ok, but.....

Thanks for the encouragment, and I'll drop by over the next while and maybe there will be some cool updates worth talking about.

IRC discussion of standardized template and HTML id/class names

I'm on IRC right now. Please awaken. — Hippietrail 06:03, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

...must...get...sleep... --Connel MacKenzie 06:25, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Look at sepsis

Needs an admin's not-so-tender mercies.--Allamakee Democrat 05:42, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks correct; what am I missing? --Connel MacKenzie 05:58, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

sorry septic

I reverted him earlier. --Allamakee Democrat 06:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Archive!

I was going to title this wanted pages, but you need to archive this page, along with the rfv et al. pages. This is something best done by an admin with protect privs. Anyway. There have been some SOBing requests up there, and I added polarity as an extreme one. You put up some softballs last time (and last time you said you more or less dredged them up at random). Fine, leave some softballs for the newbies, but perhaps a "toughie" line might be added, but then this would likely drag for weeks, so, bad idea. Do Archive. --Allamakee Democrat 04:42, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It is sad that I follow such a tangential line of thought so well. OK, I promise as soon as my houseguests leave next week, I'll start an archive run. I replenish the "teaser" lists from Special:Wantedpages. I am delighted if I have to switch to "view 500 entries" just to find some redlinks. So, mostly random, anyhow. The "Special:" pages are refreshed twice a week (Wed/Sat) approximately at midnight UTC. Only twice (when the semi-weekly updates were broken) have I seen all the English entries in the top 2,000 turned blue. It might be nice to make that a Halloween contest; have ten or more people gang up on that one list for a couple days.

OK, I'll archive soon. --Connel MacKenzie 04:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Misuse of the indicative

Please, when you're being prescriptive, say "this should not be used in English" or "I wish people wouldn't use this in English". Don't say "this is not English" of something that people do use in English, because that's a lie. --Ptcamn 07:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Um, OK. Was this in reference to something in particular? --Connel MacKenzie 07:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

coördinate --Ptcamn 08:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

As you can probably see from my statements there, my interpretation of the term being entered was that one or two people advocating a strange spelling were pushing that term. Stephen's history lesson has clarified quite a bit for me...he rightly points out that much of that era was before my time. But without his clarification, this seemed like a very strange exception to the normal rules of not using foreign diacritics in English. Well, it still does. At any rate, if you think I said what I did, with an intent to deceive, you are mistaken. My most recent tongue-in-cheek nomination aside, I'll try to remember to use one of those other wordings for the same concept. --Connel MacKenzie 08:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

What rules of not using "foreign" diacritics? I note that the diaeresis is one of the few non-foreign diacritics, along with the grave. In any case, such rules mustn't be universal, because using foreign diacritics is not uncommon, and I'd like to think Wiktionary doesn't just follow the rules of one particular favored variety. --Ptcamn 19:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

While it is a valid point that we must not be restricted to one particular favored variety, I don't understand how you can suggest that diacritics (of any sort) are part of the English language. Did you learn the ABCs song when you were one or two? What letters in the alphabet have diacritics? Sorry if it seems like I'm over-simplifying, but diacritics are normally only used in the English language when borrowing from a foreign language that has them...and even then, the foreign term is usually in quotation marks or italicized to show that it is not English. --Connel MacKenzie 20:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the "diacritics" part of this conversation should be moved to the BP, where a wider audience is likely. (Your concern about my use of the indicative seems mostly valid; point taken.) --Connel MacKenzie 20:13, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Heading tooltips

Hi Connel. I see you tried to add support for more headings. Now that I've taken the feature live I'm not using the version in my user space, it's just for debugging. The live version is in in the main js file: MediaWiki:Monobook.js#Wiktionary-specific tooltips.

Also you ask, "Shouldn't these be case insensitive?" I think not because one subfeature is to flag incorrect headings and we only have one correct case - sentence case.

In the same vein I wouldn't flag nonstandard or incorrect headings in the tooltips. This is unprofessional for users even if it helps editors. Good usability means not annoying users with stuff that's only of concern to editors.

That said, they're all fair topics for the Beer parlour. Flagging errors is a damn good idea but I'd rather do it this way:

• Have a preference, "Flag bad or nonstandard formatting"
• Have a GUI element above or below the article in view mode and possibly edit mode to show when formatting errors are detected, possibly just a small logo that can be clicked on to expand to a list of what the errors are.

— Hippietrail 13:03, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Those ones had been specifically requested on WT:GP. They were appearing with the "This is not a standard Wiktionary heading" thereby annoying regular users. I have no objection to moving it to WT:BP. I too, think that is appropriate. But then, WT:GP is also OK, for hammering out details first. --Connel MacKenzie 15:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

{{infl}}

Please use the correct templates! I've been working to replace the old ones with the new ones and now you're re-inserting them! — Vildricianus 15:39, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, you know quite well that it is being done in a semi-automated manner. I've not had a chance recently to rework the Javascript that does that.

On the other hand, you should remember that even though we strongly recommend using the new templates, we can't force anyone to use them. Your bots will need to be re-run next month anyway, as even some of the preload templates are still using the older style. The subsequent month, you'll pick up the remaining changes from contributors who probably want to use the new ones, but, like me, had difficulty switching from the one concept to the other. Right now, due to lack of practice, perhaps, I am much more familiar with the use and limitations of the "Uncle G" templates. Since you have an automated way of unifying them, I don't understand what the problem is...other than me not learning the subtleties of the new system. --Connel MacKenzie 15:50, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Don't understand what the problem is??? It's a huge problem!!! I can't live with it !!!!! :-) — Vildricianus 15:59, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Relax. I shall change my JS. But you must remember that your automated process is now an ongoing maintenance item...I'm not the only person who learned the old method. And this is a wiki; there is absolutely no way you can force people to use the "correct" template du-jour. --Connel MacKenzie 16:02, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Ooops, I didn't notice the smiley, hiding amongst the exclamation points. (I need courier 12 font for my talk page too, I guess.) --Connel MacKenzie 16:04, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, I really think you should be banned for not following the rules. :-) — Vildricianus 16:09, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

For example, what is the "new" format for evoke? I know the old style; is the new style described anywhere? And can't the old formats simply do a template transformation to the new style, anyhow? --Connel MacKenzie 16:18, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Everything is explained on Template talk:en-verb#Parameters. It should be {{en-verb|evok|ing}}. Although I admit we're still waiting for a clear-explanations-guru to write something more user-friendly there. — Vildricianus 16:21, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

So {{en-infl-reg-other-e}}'s content could be replaced with {{en-verb|{{{1}}}|ing}} and comments added to it to remind people to use the new form then? --Connel MacKenzie 16:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that should work. — Vildricianus 16:31, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Please be bold with them, then. Also summarize this section on WT:GP at some point. Perhaps without the big smiley. --Connel MacKenzie 16:33, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

• Ya know, if the "Uncle G" en-infl templates all get "fixed" as redirect things, I'll be able to just add "subst:" before them all, and be done with it...and an occasional SUBST-botting would rememdy all the others. --Connel MacKenzie 19:19, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

roflcopter

I'm not sure why you deleted roflcopter but if you don't think it belongs here please take it through RFV or RFD. As far as I'm concerned it's a real word, although high-quality citations are obviously hard to come by. Kappa 23:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I was chasing a WT:CT image copyvio, and saw that that had been reentered. AFAIK, that never did pass RFD or RFV, even though it was nominated along with a batch of 'leet' terms. The citations given are certainly not from three reputable independent publications. So it is an obvious delete, as it clearly has not entered the English language proper. For you, I'll drag it through its own separate RFD nomination. --Connel MacKenzie 23:17, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Wiktionary-specific preferences

Hi Connel. I've got my js working for adding tab to the preferences and I'm ready to start working on the meaty bits. That means I'll be taking your js and gui as a starting point. Since your stuff is global and the two will surely clash, I wonder if you can think of a nice way for people to opt out or for two versions of the code to cöëxist in some way. For now I'm going to do an ugly hard-coded hack that checks for my username in MediaWiki:Monobook.js around where your stuff is included. That's probably not the best solution though. Especially when I need you and others to check what I've come up with. — Hippietrail 00:21, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

In fact I couldn't opt out the way I expected because at the point in the js where you code is included, there is no way I can find to get the username. I'm going to move my opt-out code the global js to your prefs code's js if I can. — Hippietrail 02:12, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't figure out something about what you've done. Your xxx/custom.js page has code that runs as soon as it's included by the global js and code that runs at soon as the page is loaded. Since it's not possible to access the username at include-time I tried to make the part of your code that writes the styles block also run at load time by making it a function called at the start of wiktWriteStyles(). For some reason I can't find this causes the whole page to blank after loading and I have to disable JavaScript to make Wiktionary usable again afterwards! For now I'm going to back out my changes in the hope that you can do something equivalent that works since you know your code. — Hippietrail 02:43, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Whoops, missed this comment earlier. My page is meant to be moved to a more central name; I had it under my userpage while I was still experimenting. I have requested (a few times) that people such as yourself edit it! And not to fork it, but instead enhance it. Weren't you going to rename all the cookies to sane names?

I'm not sure I completely understand why it has to be a MediaWiki:Monobook.js hook, but going from my personal Monobook.js did not work.

Errors encountered when using the JS "document.write" with <STYLE stuff can do much worse things than just blanking the page. Consider yourself lucky. (You have seen my JS "logo" on User:Connel MacKenzie#Pending tasks, right?)  :-)

The easiest way I can think of, is to add a second "Use preferences on this page" cookie. Something like "enWiktUseHippieTrailPreferences", (erm, enWiktUseHTPrefs) then split from that point. But then, I think forking (even in that minor way) is probably a bad idea, at this experimental juncture.

--Connel MacKenzie 07:41, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Minnan-ascii-bot

How's Minnan-ascii-bot?Did it gain bot status? Unblocked? A yao 07:04, 29 July 2006 (UTC) Your right. The problem is that SemperBlotto deleted all the redirects. Are those revertable? By the way, examples are in the beer parlour already. A yao 07:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

RFV archive

I have dealt with all entries up to the end of June in the main heading, but dont know how to archive them. So can you put them where you think they fit best :)? Many thanks. Andrew massyn 09:44, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

If Vild doesn't get to it first, I'll move them to WT:RFVA on Wednesday, when I start my archiving run of this page. --Connel MacKenzie 16:03, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

pinch cake

Hi there. I need some US help. Trying to handle the request for pinch cake and Google throws up all sorts of very strange (to me) recipes mostly involving "cans of biscuits". Well, in England there are a thousand different sort of biscuit, but none of them come in cans! Can you be of any help? SemperBlotto 10:49, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

In the US, when we say "biscuits" from a refrigerated can, we mean a tube of pillsbury (confer Pillsbury dough-boy) quick oven biscuits. The kind you "pop" the tube/can open by smashing sideways against a counter, then spacing the ten or twelve dough peices on a cookie sheet, and baking for 10 minutes at 450. The result is something like a two-inch unsweetened British scone. The bread/biscuit fluffs up nicely and is usually served just with butter.

The "Pinch cake" is a *very* Texas-specific recepie, that I've never sampled. I figured out what the problem was, only with Dvortygirl's help in IRC, by the way. When I first read your description, I was thinking of a can of crackers (light years different from biscuits.)

The idea of a "pinch cake" is that you can make one in 15 minutes (i.e. when you are in a pinch) from just the "whatever" stuff you have laying around in the fridge. The tube of dough makes it all fluff up nice enough to pass for something resembling a "cake." --Connel MacKenzie 16:55, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks (both of you) - I have made a stab at a definition. SemperBlotto 17:12, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Hrm. After all that, the entry seems sparse. Pillsbury should have "™", "Texan" should probably say "Southern US," and there should be some explicit etymological note about "being in a pinch." Maybe. I may revisit later, I suppose. --Connel MacKenzie 17:52, 30 July 2006 (UTC)